Down The Rabbit Hole
by Black Aliss
Summary: It's a universally acknowledged fact that when faced with tragedy people turn in rather than out. George remembers.


Down The Rabbit Hole

A/N: This was meant to be post DH, and still is in a way, but young George was irrepressible. Bless his heart.

It occurred to him that his family were rather like rabbits, all jokes on fertility aside. When the thunderstorms rolled overhead they went scampering back down into the warren of memory—where things were…safe. When there had been two of them.

George had read somewhere that human beings didn't actually physically retain long term memories until the age of three. That, he knew, was bull shit. He remembered things from when he was, to quote McGongall's oddly motherly manner _a wee bairn_.

Sure some of them were blurry, just flashes of emotion, the pain he'd felt when, exhilarated by the newly discovered feat of walking he'd fallen onto a coffee table.

The first firecracker he'd pulled, with Percy ironically, and the brilliant way it went bang. He'd fallen over onto his tiny little bum in surprise and Mum had been about to smack Percy for it until she realized he was laughing.

And he remembered the first time he'd realized that not _everyone_ had a doppelganger.

He'd always taken his shadow for granted, it was red haired like him and it had a spattering of freckles across the nose and when he waved to it like at a mirror it waved back, a small crinkle forming above the classic Weasley nose.

He remembered the first time he'd realized that in fact his doppelganger was _not_ him, but in fact another entity entirely, like the red haired blurs of Bill, Charlie, and Percy—but completely different. His, and at the same time _not_ his.

It had been Christmas, he remembered that much from the flashes of coloured light on the ornaments, the warm smell of cookies, and the almost secretive way that Dad had kissed Mum under the mistletoe.

It had been the Christmas just after Ron was born, a curious dough-like lump which cried a lot and didn't do much else.

Still, George had high hopes for the lump and had been surreptitiously poking it all evening to see if it could do anything else. So far the results had been disappointing.

He still remembered the way the sweet vanilla smell had been disrupted when the door opened, sweeping in the scent of pine and frost and a bitter smell he only recognized from when he had fallen on the pavement and scraped his knee.

The man silhouetted in the door was tall and had the longest beard he had ever seen. He had wanted to touch it, it looked so lovely and dove like as if you could throw yourself into it and it would submerge you in softness.

The man called his father by a foreign name, _Arthur_, at that point he'd never heard anyone call him that and wondered briefly why this man had confused Dad with someone called Arthur who sounded like a right ponce.

_Arthur I'm afraid I…_

He was still staring at the man's white beard with something akin to longing and so missed the way his mother's face crumbled to despair.

However when the first cry sounded, a piercing wail that rent the air he had tumbled over in anxiety. It was a primal noise that called to him.

_I'm so sorry Molly. But they'll have a proper burial at least, Moody managed to collect th- the bodies._

Ron's colic inspired cries joined his mother's in a dischordant harmony. He watched helpless to do anything as Dad put a comforting arm around Mum and watched the way the thick fat tears dropped onto the carpet.

He could feel nothing but the fierce desire that Mum should _never_ have to feel like this again. Nothing but the fervent desire to make things better. Oh if only he had a Christmas cracker he could make things _alright_.

Or a bowl of cake batter, Mum _always_ laughed when he tried to lick the bowl and ended up with chocolate on his nose.

If only he could do _something_.

He began to sob quietly.

It was he realized quite the wrong tack as Mum tried desperately to wipe away her tears and swept him and his shadow into her arms.

_Shhh…there there… Uncle Gideon and Uncle Fabian wouldn't want you to cry..no..not that_ She said, voice breaking.

George hiccupped in his desperation to stop crying, he wouldn't want to disappoint Uncle Fabian, _never_ Uncle Fabian.

_You two are named for them you know, Gideon and Fabian—Fred and George_.

She rubbed his red gold hair gently, threading her fingers through it. _Gideon and Fabian; Fred and George. You two are my tricksters now. _

Twins…

He stared at his shadow.

No longer his shadow, it had a name now.

He stared at Fred.

Fred stared back.

And _that_ was a beginning.


End file.
